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The reason I picked 1950s Americana as a theme for "Glasshouse" was not only because it was a rather oppressive period 'Rather oppressive' That seems grossly inaccurate. I would describe the communist block in said period as 'rather oppressive'....

I'm ... well, I'm about as pissed off as those Charles Stross fans who keep bugging me for a third Eschaton novel. ..which is only about half as pissed off as those fans who would keep bugging you to...

@Trottelreiner The best argument for mass immigration is to compare ethnically and culturally homogenous countries( Finland, Czech Republic, Norway, Poland) with those that are heterogenous, like the United States, Russia, Malaysia or past countries (19th century Turkey, Austria-Hungaria.) The...

Pick eligble citizens to parliament using a scientifically backed randomized method. ^^This. Though I'd limit the parliament eligibility to people capable of scoring respectably above average on some sort of intelligence test. IQ scores can be improved by practice,...

Genius is contextual, and someone who is a genius at chipping obsidian isn't necessarily going to be good at financial derivatives or genomics, and vice versa. All genius? And are you really sure? Because, been demonstrated and replicated that...

@Vox No. They choose smart partners to procreate with. For every manwho likes airheads you can easily find four or five who choose someone who's on the level with them, intellectually. @DJP O'Kane Anecdotes schmanecdotes. How many science nobels have...

Eugenics immoral? For starters, people widely practice voluntary eugenics. I know of a few smart men who prefer stupid women, but mostly it's the other way around. And there's the aforementioned abortions of fetuses thought to be defective and...

I find it disgusting how readily people like you will presume that the Chinese have zero moral compulsions. Their leaders already apparently condone selling political prisoners off for organs. Chinese already practice coercive population control policies. Even if you...

Heh, you don't know? http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=3741 We have two distinct problem solving approaches, once is interpersonal(emotional) the other rational, it seems. The emotional one is easily exploited, and using it makes you more humane but more gullible. People who operate purely...

. Indeed, fossil evidence demonstrates that we're more stupid than both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon (our cranial capacity is smaller other early modern Homo sapiens). Farming societies can also have more specialization.. Therefore, I'd suggest again that there's no way...

So? Chinese or Japanese or other Asians aren't white either, yet are no pushovers, intellectually speaking. No matter what kind of dreadful history their ancestors have endured. What I wrote is that since everyone except sub-saharan Africans(by that I mean...

Shorter version: Just what color do you think the librarians were at Alexandria? I'd guess the same color as Egyptians are today. Brownish. I do believe the Black Egyptians theory has been thoroughly thrashed. I think the more likely...

Chimpanzees have managed that, but I don't know of any non-anthropoid that has done so (which doesn't mean they don't exist) There's a pod of dolphins which teaches their young to use tools, specifically some kind of sea sponge...

Let me re-formulate that hypothesis: The evolutionary pressure selecting for general intelligence (to the extent that general intelligence exists) breaks once a species develops language. Interesting. But you'd have to prove it breaks completely. I'd say there's plenty of...

That said, I have a hard time believing that women are genetically engineered to be less aggressive. It isn't the case in nature. So what? Bears hibernate, we don't, generally*. It's all down to evolutionary pressures. I don't think...

TL:DR; sex and gender are a lot more complicated than is evident from a distance. I know the difference between sex and gender. Still I don't get what Mrs. Leicht meant. Ah. I looked at the article. _____________________________________________________ Oh...

@Stina Leicht Regarding Grossman's book. a)it starts out from spurious data, such as firing rates based on now completely discredited WWII research by SLA Marshall who was found to have had pulled data from his behind. b) continues being wrong...

Some notes: 1) economy is down compared to 80s-90s. Weirdly, Stina, homicide rate and mass murders are both down. What economy factor did you have in mind? See here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/07/aurora_shooting_how_did_people_commit_mass_murder_before_automatic_weapons_.html 2) Russia, which has strict gun control, where all people...

Wrong. Racism is simply the result of a behavioral adapatation which treats bad experiences from people you percieve as 'other' differently. The bad impression lasts longer and is more powerful. Scapegoating.. Not sure how scapegoating explains the very high levels...

(notably shrinking ecological niches and climate change) will do for our distant descendants. I have a quibble here: unless are distant ancestors are non-sentient, shrinking ecological niches or climate change won't affect their survival. Numbers may change.. No other...

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The "I love Lucy" vision of the 1950s is rather popular with conservatives -- or hadn't you noticed? Oh the irony. The Lucy character was not only a fairly powerful (if not in a making money outside the home sense) female character, but married to {shock, horror time} a Mexican. In a case of life imitating art (or vice versa) Lucille Ball actually was married to Desi Arnaz, and they were the real-life co-owners of Desilu Studios, which name may be familiar to people....

paws4thot wrote in part: but married to {shock, horror time} a Mexican. Detail - Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-American, not a Mexican or Mexican-American. His family were well off in Cuba before the revolution. His father was apparently the mayor of Santiago de Cuba, the second biggest city in Cuba, immediately prior to the Revolution. He was arrested after and jailed for six months, and all the family property confiscated. They apparently left for the US shortly after....

+1 yank whose favorite Stross book is "Glasshouse". When it was initially proposed that "Glasshouse" may be tied to the "Accelerando" universe I felt the segue between the two was perfectly clean. The tech in "Glasshouse" is derivative of the tech at the end of "Accelerando" and the absences (Aineko, the Vile Offspring, etcetera) I always interpreted as collateral, or even the purpose, of the Censorship Wars. As for cluttered and unpredictable, the Censorship Wars are the perfect 'cure'; you now have a human universe that knows of no outside influence (see above absences) which can be reintroduced/ignored as the...